I'd like to create some market-neurtal portfolio that always stays flat, e.g. buy VOO sell SPY.

Disadvantages

  1. shorting stock involves paying dividends - https://www.google.com/search?q=do+i+pay+dividends+if+I+short+stock

  2. borrowing shares may be expensive - https://www.google.com/search?q=cost+of+shorting+the+stock

Another way of doing it is to use proportions of opposite stocks, e.g. long SPY long VXX, but this portfolio may fluctuate significantly and is not exactly market-neutral.

How to create a combination of stocks bouncing around 0 and at the same time make sure that I don't overpay for it?